Studio One is a one-year post-professional program for students with an accredited Bachelor of Architecture degree. A two-semester studio course makes up the core of the program intended for those interested in exploring innovative and experimental design issues through a research-oriented and multidisciplinary approach. It is supplemented by seminars, lectures, and workshops in architectural design, engineering, and natural sciences with the opportunity to take electives at the College of Environmental Design. Students who complete the program will receive a post-professional Master of Architecture degree.

Building on the positive experience of the previous year, Studio One once again has the theme Bio-inspired Design and Fabrication and is directed by Assistant Professor Simon Schleicher. The goal of the studio is to pioneer a new design approach that arises from knowledge and experience of multiple disciplines and to deepen our newly established collaborations with academic and industry partners. Studio One seeks to forge interdisciplinary and cross-professional alliances to provoke a novel design paradigm based on the integration of multifaceted methodologies and informed processes. The main focus in this respect is on re-examining and merging the areas of biomimetics, computational design, structural analysis, material-based fabrication and construction.

The studio follows an inquiry-oriented, experiment-based, and project-driven research agenda. Based on an intensive, critical, and analytical approach to cutting-edge design and construction methods, the studio aims to go one step further by taking inspiration from flexible and resilient structures found in nature. By closely investigating biological role models in the plant and insect world for their efficiency and adaptability and by abstracting their underlying construction principles into suitable architectural systems, the studio challenges our present understanding with new bio-inspired fabrication and construction concepts. Studio One students designed and fabricated models and large-scale demonstrations that showcase the potential of biologically informed design concepts that anticipate a new foundation for lightweight, multifunctional, and sustainable architecture.